I do not consider myself a great cook. But I do consider myself a great-er cook than I was about 8 years ago. With the help of church cookbooks, the internet, and friends I’ve been able to fake my way into cooking a decent meal. I’ve also called my Grandma several times for help. (By the way, her food always tastes better when she makes it)
It’s been a lot of trial and error. In fact, I couldn’t even bake a potato the whole first year of marriage! Times sure have changed and I’m happy to announce I can bake both white and sweet potatoes.
I’ve also learned that one of the best ways to save money on groceries is to plan your meals and try to use some of your food items for more than one meal. For example,I can use one bag of frozen chicken breasts to make 2-3 meals for our family of 5. I will grill 2 chkn.breasts for barbeque chicken pizza, Pound out 2 chkn. breasts to be breaded..and pan fried to eat w/ pasta, chop & saute 2 chkn. breasts for tacos. (My children are still small, so they don’t eat as much…or at all!)
I want to share a recipe that I recently tried. (It is Husband approved). I actually came up with this on my own. My two main ingredients that I was stretching were corn tortillas and chicken. I bought a pack of small corn tortillas to make fish & chicken tacos. They were very tasty and I had more than half a bag of tortillas left over. When I have leftovers, I always try to think of a way to jazz it up the second time around. (I had to train myself to eat leftovers).
This is what I came up with:
You’ll need this -
1 Package corn tortillas, Vegetable oil,1 can enchilada sauce, shredded cheese,shredded lettuce,chopped cooked chicken,sour cream,& diced tomatoes.
Put about 2 inches of vegetable oil in a pot. Put the heat on med./high until it bubbles when you splash a TINY bit of water into it. (not very technical..sorry) The tortilla will start to bubble up, I usually pop the the little bubbles w/ my tongs and just keep flipping it over until it’s crispy. Remove the tortilla and let them rest on a plate covered w/ paper towel.
After your tortillas are done cooking, you can start assembling.
Start layering -
Enchilada sauce,cheese,chicken
Microwave for about 45 seconds or place 6 on a cookie sheet in a 375 degree oven for about 5 minutes.
Top with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, & a dollop of sour cream.
Done.
(for a shortcut on the chkn., I used Tyson’s Fajita chicken breast strips,cut into chunks)
Hungry yet?
The food looks really yummy!! I agree when someone else cooks the food is almost always better especially Grandma.
Now send the receipe for the pizza with chix
Great idea! I always have corn tortilla shells on hand since we love enchiladas at our house, but I’ve never tried cooking them myself (I bet it’s cheaper than buying the already cooked ones like taco or tostada shells) – I think I’ll give this a whirl tonight
Sounds like the first meal I ever cooked for our inlaws. We use a can of heated refried beans as the first layer. It makes everything stick to the tortilla. We make ours with ground beef, but leftover chicken sounds better. By the way, that meal was the first Mexican food Grandma had ever had.